Some cool visual art images:
Busy
Image by gfpeck
Pro103: Henri Cartier-Bresson
The photographer to emulate for this assignment is none other than Henri Cartier-Bresson. Most of you have heard of him at one point or another. He’s one of the greatest photographers of all time. Widely called the father of modern photojournalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson traveled the world and covered many major events on assignment. He viewed the camera as an extension of the eye.
HCB is, of course, also known as the master of street photography. In 1952 he published a book called The Decisive Moment. It contained photos that captured not just any moment, but a decisive moment. A moment of spontaneous movement or change. A witty or telling perspective. A moment of interest. Henri Cartier-Bresson had an amazing talent for capturing fleeting, unnoticed moments, and he had an exceptional eye for composition. He didn’t crop his photos.
The decisive moment became Henri Cartier-Bresson’s art and style. In his own words, the decisive moment is "the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an event, as well as the precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression."
He said: "Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."
WIT: This assignment sneaked up on me and I have to admit I didn’t finish my homework or take nearly enough photos in my pursuit of street photography. I did however learn some things and did manage to cross the line of taking pictures of people I dont know.
I did some reading and reviewing of articles regarding HCB and found them very interesting. I am currently reading the Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer and he mentions HCB several times and comments on how HCB intersected the lives of other famous photographers. He also recounts how HCB practiced the approach of "baiting the trap" where he would select spot that promised some type of visual interaction between the place and the people passing through it. This is the approach I took.
In the course of attemping street photography I ran into several behaviours I should have anticipated. Most (ok, all) of my attempts were made by sitting in a place where I waited for people to cross a predefined scene. In the setting where I took the photo submitted for the assignment I spied several interesting people heading for the intersection of the art and brought the camera up to my eye to make it look like I was interested in the art work. No one entered the frame. Where did they go? I lowered the camera and they were looking at me and waiting for me to take the photo of the art work. Very nice of them. A bit later it happened again. People on campus are just too polite for that style of street photography.
I got lucky and did a quick draw of the camera and caught this fellow ignoring those around him as he focused on his call. I caught him right in the middle of the metal sculpture and found that the image needed to be cropped. I went with the square format because of distractions to the left.
